C.
KEY LEVER STAYS DOWN AFTER BEING PRESSED OR STRUCK

Replacement Key Lever--
We now have a craftsman who can make a new key lever of kiln dried
wood. We must have the key to the left and right of the
broken key for him to work with as a pattern. A digital
photo of the keys showing the area of the broken key will
also help him. We will have to get a quote-- SEND
MAIL

A
Key Lever Broke

If your key lever lays there
helplessly depressed, and if it won't play at all if you lift it and push it back
down, your key lever is probably broken. After opening the
piano, make sure of this, and only attempt a repair if it is broken in the
center.

First clean any loose shavings of wood out of the break. Try
fitting it together dry to see if it will go all the way back together. If not,
clean up the break some more. DO NOT seriously carve up the key trying to repair
it. THERE ARE NO REPLACEMENT PARTS FOR WHOLE KEYS.

Cover all the broken
exposed wood of the key with Elmer's carpenter's glue-- the murky off white stuff.
Align the two ends together, and clamp it as it dries. Look it over after you
clamp it to get it as true as possible lengthwise. Let it dry for at least 24
hours. Once dry, sand the sides of the key carefully and carve off all the
excess glue.

Now, find something thin, flat, and rigid to laminate
to one side of the key. I like to use the narrow stem piece of used ivory from
a key lever. You can order them in out Online Catalog under Key
Tops. Carefully put the key lever into place in the piano to see which side
of the key has the widest crack which would allow space for the laminated goodie.
Laminate your piece of material, with the above glue, to the side of the key across
the break along the side of the key. Clamp it gently, or roll rubber bands over
the repaired area to act as clamps.

After this step dries, sand it
again to get off any rough or curled edges on the lamination. Put the key into
the piano. It will very likely not fit perfectly. You may have to adjust it as
instructed in Lost Motion Section of Chapter Seven.

RECENT OPTION:
We have acquired a repair clip for key repair which replaces the lamination aspect
after the initial gluing step above:

Key Lever Repair Scotch Clip

Glue the broken
key back together with Elmer's Carpenter's Glue, as instructed above.

After
it is dry, open the jaws of a bench vice, and hold the key lever with a clip on
each side of the key lever positioned across the break. Offset the two clips so
that the points will not jam each other, points against the side of the lever
and on either side of the break. Have a second person slowly close the vice jaws
as you steady the key lever and clips. Stop when the clips are well embedded.

Illustration showing the Scotch Clip applied to wood. The black line represents
a break in a key lever. After gluing, the clip is applied in a bench vise, one
clip on each side of the key lever. The vise presses the clips in without hammering.
Wood glue should be used, as instructed above, for added strength. The clips are
VERY dangerous for children to play with.

For
the Perfectionist

There is one more thing you can do to
strengthen the repaired key, but only if you are pretty mechanically literate.
If you do this, do not laminate it as above until after this process. Do glue
the break as above. Also, do NOT combine the Scotch clip above with this additional
fix.

Look the key lever over very closely to see how you can drill
a smallish hole through the break at an angle through the key. If the "key button"
(the layer of wood attached over the top of the hole which has the red felt in
it) is loose, gently break it on off, and glue it on again solidly. You can drill
through the "key button" if it will help your work fit better.

Acquire
two pins or small nails the size of your drill bit, removing the nail head, and
cut them so that they will not protrude from the holes you are going to drill.
Drill your holes through the break at two angles, being VERY careful that your
travel, and later the pin you insert, will not get into the throw of the center
pin when the key rocks!!! Read that again please. Drill all the way through the
key from one side to the other at an angle. Make your angles crisscross if possible.

The two holes may have to end up about parallel, on the either extreme
of the brake. Now, baptize (by Baptist immersion :-) the pins or nail pieces in
Elmer's glue, and slide them into the holes. Let it dry good before re-assembly.
If you miscalculated, and the center pin binds up on one of the repair pins, try
bending the center pin forward of backward to give it clearance. Bend it with
the key OUT of the piano so that you do not break your repair.

If
a totally dead key is not broken, skip ahead and look for Jack
repair or for Sticker repair. You may have action damage, or you may have
a jack popped loose.

Grand
Piano Key Lever Repair

The only issue on a grand
piano is that the key lever is much longer than on an upright piano. It is VERY
important that the glued key lever be aligned by slight positioning effort to
make sure it is perfectly straight, top and side alignment. This is done best
in the vise by sighting along the top, bottom, and side of the key lever to see
if it is straight. It is easy to miss a slight angle across the break. This can
make it very difficult to make the key lever fit in the piano later.

Other
Options

There are none. Key levers are not for sale
on ANY brand of piano. You must fix it, or you must manufacture a new one. I new
one will very likely warp later, so do not avoid trying to do the repair on the
this page.